Dictionary.com Word FAQs

How can I find the collective noun for something, like a group of penguins?

With Internet access, you will have many collections of collective nouns at your fingertips. The thing is that you must check what you find in a respected dictionary. Let's say you were looking for the name of a group of hawks and found a "cast of hawks" on a web site. You might be inclined to believe this. However, if you check a respected dictionary you will find that it is only 'a pair of hawks released by a falconer at one time'. The term "cast" is not really a collective term. More appropriate terms would be "aerie" and "kettle."